A FROME writer is celebrating after winning a number of awards for her poetry at recent literary festivals.
There was success for Rosie Jackson at the Wells Literary Festival with three awards; one award at the Torbay Poetry Festival and a ‘highly commended’ award at the Winchester Festival.
Rosie told the Frome Times, “At the Wells Literary Festival, I won 1st prize for a poem called ‘One little roome, an every where’ (yes, spelt like that, it’s a quote from the 17th c poet Donne). This is about one of the anchorites – a female recluse in the middle ages, who would voluntarily let herself be walled in to a cell on the side of a church so she could devote all her life to God. There was no door, she was never let out again.
“The competition judge, Terry Gifford, who teaches poetry at Bath Spa, introduced it by saying he wasn’t a religious man, but this poem had won him over by getting inside the mind of the recluse. When he said he ‘was totally in awe of the winning poem,’ I thought well, that can’t be mine, then; I was so shocked when it was. I can’t tell you how delighted I am.
“Then, as I was leaving the stage, Terry called me back because I had also won the Hilly Cansdale award, which is given to a local poet. This was for a different poem, about a walk from Langport to Muchelney Abbey on Midsummer’s Day this year.
“And as I left the stage I was called back once again to receive the audience vote for most popular poem. (I think that vote meant as much as the rest!) So, all in all that day, I won prize money of £900. Who says poetry doesn’t pay? Especially as, the day before, I was at Torbay Poetry Festival receiving a cheque for £300 for my second prize poem there, about Hilda Carline, the first wife of artist Stanley Spencer. And two weeks ago I was ‘highly commended’ at the Winchester Festival, coming 5th out of 1500 entries.
“Writing poetry can be a lonely and time-consuming task, so it’s a wonderful affirmation to be recognised this way, and it also helps when approaching publishers with new collections.”
Off the back of her recent success, Rosie will be at the Frome Poetry Cafe to read her winning poems at their Christmas session on Monday 10th December in the Garden Cafe on Stony Street, from 7.30pm.
Above: Rosie Jackson accepts an award from Bath Spa University’s poetry teacher, Terry Gifford.